ONE WOMAN'S CHICAGO

Last Saturday, when I was out in Michigan, I looked up from my paper and saw I had a visitor. A deer was peering into the living room. Hello!

At one point in history, seeing a deer would be a rarity. I’ve read that, at the beginning of the 20th century, there were only about 500,000 white-tailed deer in all of North America. Nowadays, there are something like 25 to 40 million in the US, and growing. As far as I can tell, deer in these parts have gotten to be more plentiful than rabbits, and far more destructive. (A rabbit can’t total a car, for instance.)

Deer are intelligent and have discovered that the safest place to live is near humans, particularly in suburban areas, where their risk of being hunted or preyed upon is small.

Deer like the tasty and delicate plants that we spend money on to decorate our yards. They enjoy using our stairs when the snow on their own dirt paths is unshoveled. According to Russell Baker, deer have been called “a mass transit system for ticks carrying Lyme disease.”

Other animals besides deer have forsaken the wild. In his sometimes hilarious review of Jim Sterba’s book, Nature Wars, Baker recounts how beavers, feral cats, coyotes, super-sized Canadian geese, skunks, foxes, ‘wild turkeys’, and even bear have gradually been discovering the benefits of civilized living, with startling effects for the humans they choose to live near. (Did you know that geese need to defecate 5 times an hour?)

My younger sister mentioned to me lately that there is even a new urban animal called the ‘coy-wolf’ that is a cross between the (western) wolf and (eastern) coyote. Coywolves have been seen in Chicago and are sometimes aggressively hostile toward humans. (You can watch a PBS video about the coywolf here.)

Do you have neighbors who are, in truth, wild animals?

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6 Comments

KWFeb 22, 2014 @
15:24:47

My husband and I went on an “Owl Prowl” in Ryerson Woods in Lake County last night. We learned that there are many owl species in and around Chicago. We heard (but did not see) screech owls, and tried to attract barred owls (to no avail last night, alas). The ornithologist who led the prowl mentioned coy-wolves when speaking on the topic of urban wildlife. I’ve been reading about urban coyotes recently–we live in close proximity to them, but usually are unaware of their presence. (Related factoid: I’m not sure if this is definitely true, but I have read that humans are never more than 3 to 6 feet away from a spider at any given time, no matter where they are.) Cheers, K.

CeliaFeb 22, 2014 @
16:49:25

Cool and creepy factoid about the spiders, K. (I can say that there are probably many more spiders living inside this very apartment than I like to think of. Every once in a while, I go into the kitchen and see a live spider hanging down from the back of the cabinetry in front of the backsplash, and Barbara sometimes finds them when she’s cleaning in the crevices of the ceiling moldings.) As for the coyotes, yes; they are more present here than we realize. I did see one sitting on the frozen surface of the North Pond once several years ago. It was sitting under a snag and looked like a big dog–it took me a while to realize what it was.

And then there was the famous but sad instance of the cougar that appeared in Roscoe Village from who knows where and that the police shot dead.

I would not mind having some urban owls!

harleyFeb 22, 2014 @
17:28:18

I like that picture! That deer looks inquisitive–and healthy, too; not an easy feat given this harsh winter we have had. . . Lyme disease: my Dr. is super careful about that. Anytime I get a tick on me he prescribes antibiotics ASAP.

CeliaFeb 23, 2014 @
10:26:19

The overpopulation of deer makes them come nearer the house, where they have been grazing intensively. But yes the ones I have seen look healthy enough, though at this point in the winter the pickings are poor.

Interesting post, Celia. My dad has a place in Wisconsin where his wife feeds the deer. I don’t think that’s such a great idea, but she hates seeing them suffer in the winter months when food is rare.

That’s a pretty cool photo of the deer peering in your window.

Now I understand why my mom’s yard (in the Chicago burbs) is filled with goose poop.

Thanks for sharing this info.

CeliaFeb 24, 2014 @
11:08:08

Thank you, Lori. Your dad’s wife will be busy, because I’ve read the deer population will keep growing and growing, increasing the scarcity of their food. I guess they could go back into the forests, but they actually don’t want to?
It was really strange to see this deer and one other come right up to the house and look in–something that I’ve never seen them do.
Good to hear from you–I thought of you the other day when visiting “Eataly”
Cheers and best wishes,
Celia

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CELIA: HER CITY is a mobile-friendly photo-journal of one woman's life in Chicago. It features photography of the city and surrounding regions, capturing the beats and dimensions of one contemporary urban life.

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